CONSTRUCTIONISM AND DISCOURSEANALYSIS

Pirjo Nikander

Department of Sociology and Social PsychologyUniversity of Tampere

FIN-33014 University of TampereFINLAND

To be published in: HHAANNDDBBOOOOKK OOFF CCOONNSSTTRRUUCCTTIIOONNIISSTT RREESSEEAARRCCHHEEDDSS.. JJAAMMEESS AA.. HHOOLLSSTTEEIINN && JJAABBEERR FF.. GGUUBBRRIIUUMM,, Guilford Publications

Revised version 15 November 2006(8832 words)

The term “discourse analysis” (DA) is best understood as an umbrella designation for a

rapidly growing field of research covering a wide range of different theoretical

approaches and analytic emphases. What discursive approaches in different disciplinary

locations share, however, is a strong social constructionist epistemology--the idea of

language as much more than a mere mirror of the world and phenomena ‘out-there’, and

the conviction that discourse is of central importance in constructing the ideas, social

processes, and phenomena that make up our social world. The discourse analysis

described in this chapter is particularly influenced by discussions and developments

within discursive psychology (e.g. Edwards 1997, Potter & Wetherell 1987, Potter

1996). Key theoretical underpinnings, starting points and traditions of discursive

constructionism are discussed in detail elsewhere in this volume (see, for example,

Chapter 16 by Leslie Miller and Chapter 18 by Jonathan Potter and Alexa Hepburn).

The scope and topic of the current chapter is therefore also more notably aimed at

practical implementation and upon numerous empirical examples of ‘doing discourse

analysis’.

The chapter is divided into three sections. In the first, I briefly discuss some underlying

commonalities, analytic themes, and guiding principles of discourse analysis. In the

process, I provide a thumb nail sketch of the scope of different analytic emphases and of

the data sets available for a discourse researcher. Second, I discuss two empirical

examples, one from a research project focusing on constructions of age and ageing in

interview data, followed by an example of the analysis of naturally occurring videotaped

materials from institutional decision-making in meeting settings. These examples from

my own work hopefully will clarify some of the key questions of conducting discursive

research on different types of materials. They also show how constructionist

epistemology guides the formulation of research questions and explicate the various

decisions and considerations that go into the process of analysis and writing-up. The

final section of the chapter takes stock of the practical and evaluative side of analysis:

transcription, reliability and validity.

The Field of Discourse Analysis

Specifying discourse analysis as a method in any traditional way is difficult, if not

impossible. Instead, the status of discourse analysis is often described as a methodology

or as a theoretical perspective rather than a method (e.g. Phillips & Hardy 2002: 3), as a

general epistemological perspective on social life containing both methodological and

conceptual elements (Wood & Kroger 2000, 3), as an analytic mentality (Schenkein

1978; Gill 1996, 144), or as craft skill or form of scholarship (Billig 1988, Potter 1997).

Discourse analysis cuts across academic and disciplinary boundaries and neighbouring

methodological traditions in the fields of rhetoric (e.g. Billig 1996), membership

categorisation analysis, and conversation analysis (Silverman 1998). To add to the

variety, discourse analysis as an academic enterprise and construction is itself astir and

emerging. Researchers’ philosophies, research interests, and assumptions as to how

discourse analysis should be defined also vary and different analytic interests, schools of

thought, and understandings of “discourse” can easily be identified both within and

across disciplines (e.g. Burr 1995, Nikander 1995, Parker 1998, Wetherell 2001b,

Wodak 2006)).

The range also bridges critical perspectives. For example, critical discourse analysts

adopt an explicitly socio-political or ideological stance toward data and analysis (e.g.

Burman & Parker 1993, Fairclough 1995; Fairclough & Wodak 1997). Some emphasise

the applied and transformative nature of analysis (e.g. Willig 1999), while others,

particularly those closer to the conversation analytic tradition focus more explicitly on

the fine-grained microdynamics of interaction and on speakers’ orientations instead of

analyst’s concerns.

The different styles and analytic dimensions in discursive research are conveyed by the

following figure.

Constructionist Critical DA

Focus on the social and political context

Focus on the microdynamics of discourse onits own right

FIGURE 1: THE FIELD OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS (DA)

Adapted from Phillips and Hardy 2002: 62

Any particular discourse analytic study can be located within this field that represents

different analytic emphases. Critical DA, for instance, aims at explaining the processes

of power from the outset: how power is legitimated, reproduced and enacted in the talk

and texts of dominant groups or institutions, while more pronouncedly data driven

bottom-up approach to discourse only attends to features that participants themselves

clearly orient to. Power, in the latter case, is limited to in vivo references to notions of

oppression and power in ways that make them analysable and hearable in interaction.

Common Themes

Given the heterogeneity of the field of discursive research, we need to ask what is

common to the variety. What themes, in other words, hold the enterprise together? The

foremost theme is the habit of attending to discourse and talk in a multitude of

interactional contexts and texts as the topic and focusing on the close study of language

use. Regardless of the particular form it takes, DA interrogates the nature of social

action by dealing with how actions and/or meanings are constructed in and through text

and talk. In practice, a discourse researcher looks for pattern and order in how text and

talk are organised and for how intersubjective understanding, social life and a variety of

institutional practices are accomplished, constructed and reproduced in the process.

How do people for instance make sense of their own identity and how are collectives

and groups - various types of ‘us’ and ‘them’ is you wish - discursively formed and

maintained through text and talk? Another potential layer for analysis focuses on the

construction of psychological categories in interaction. How do we make sense of and

use (references to) emotions or memories in interaction and what are the social functions

of psychological categories in interaction (Harré 1986)? A discourse researcher may

also focus on historical and longer-term features of discursive formation, for instance on

how meaning-making concerning a particular institution such as the university or the

European Union have developed over time. In general, topics such as hospital culture,

attitudes, everyday descriptions and opinions, institutional practices, emotions, and

identity are not approached as abstract structures or as separate from the interactions,

conversations and textually mediated practices that are an intrinsic part of their make-up.

Instead, discursive researchers prefer to approach these phenomena in terms of how they

are talked-into-being, and in relation to their social and interactional functions.

Potential data sets in discourse analysis include all forms of talk transcribed into written

format from audio or video recordings and a wide variety of written documents. Data in

DA range then from naturally occurring dyadic or multi-party conversations in everyday

and institutional settings to interviews and focus groups, the analysis of documents,

records, diaries and newspaper items, media products like political gatherings, speeches

or interviews and, increasingly, to the analysis of visual materials and semiotic

structures of place (Scollon & Scollon 2004).

A second common theme is the consideration of everyday language for its occasioned

and situated functions. The action orientation of discourse refers to the notion that

people do things with words (Austin 1962), they account for, explain, blame, make

excuses, construct facts, use cultural categories, and present themselves to others in

specific ways taking the interpretive context into account. The discourse researcher is

interested in identifying recurrent patterns in language use, not some internal

psychological or in-the-world entity that lies ‘behind’ and explains it. Explicating the

dynamics and dilemmas of people’s active sense making, the detail of people’s practices

of categorisation, accounting and explaining all lie at the heart of this analytic task.

Consequently, the focus is on how versions of our social realities are achieved in and

through texts and talk.

Consider for instance the following exchange between an attorney (A) and a witness

(W) in a rape trial cross-examination.

[Da:Ou: 1:2] (From Drew 1992: 489)i

A: It’s where uh (.) gi:rls and fella:s

meet isn’t it?

W: People go there

The business at hand in this courtroom is to establish- on the basis of evidence given -

whether characteristics of rape apply to the case at hand. In the extract above, the

attorney and the witness produce alternative descriptions of the location where the

victim and the defendant met. Their mutually competing versions clearly project

different motives, scenarios and interpretations of the actions on the night in question,

and the witness’ choice of words works to dispute those of the attorney’s. Formal

institutional contexts like courtrooms or meetings are typical sites where people clearly

do things and establish facts with words. In such contexts, talk is often rife with

discourse that is carefully crafted to fit the context. The same holds true - perhaps less

dramatically and obviously – for our everyday discourse where on the surface neutral

descriptions, accounts and categorisations are in similar ways about the ‘facts of the

matter’, possibly about our moral character or trustworthiness and about orienting to the

particular interpretive context and recipient. The process of becoming a skilled discourse

analyst thus includes making the familiar strange (Gill 1996: 144) and taking a step back

from the taken for granted nature of language. This requires developing a constructionist

analytic eye and ear--an appreciation of the detailed artfulness of text, talk and

interaction. In other words the task of the discourse analyst is to study “how people do

the transparently obvious” (Sacks 1974).

The third common theme in discourse analysis, which takes a special emphasis in

discursive psychology, is a focus on rhetorical organization, on the persuasive and

morally consequential aspects of language use. DA is sensitive to the notion that

discourse is guided towards persuasion and that this typically results in the

argumentative organization of talk and texts (see Billig 1996). In practical terms this

means that talk and texts can be analysed in terms of how they orient to or take into

account culturally available opposing argumentative positions. Such mutually

contrastive argumentative positions were evident in our earlier data extract from the rape

trial, but similar rhetorical structures – particularization and categorisation (Billig 1985)

– also form the basis of our everyday argumentation and discourse. In addition,

newspaper reports, parliamentary discussions, election campaigns and debates, which

are materials that discourse researchers commonly work with, all represent further

potential data sets where the analysis clearly stands to gain from rhetorical analysis. The

construction of facts in the news coverage on 9/11 and its aftermath, the political

discourse of New Labour, and the political argumentation concerning European Union

expansion are thus all examples of potential data for a discourse analyst.

Doing Discourse Analysis

A constructionist epistemology leads the discourse analyst towards a specific kind of

analytic orientation and interpretative take on data. Discourse and interaction are topics

in their own right, and language use is constructive action with specific rhetorical

characteristics. At the same time however, there is no one method in the sense of some

formally specified set of procedures or calculations, and constructionist theory does not

directly guide discourse analysis in particular ways. Instead, discourse researchers often

argue that the best way to learn the analytic craft skills is through practice and example

(e.g. Widdicombe 1993: 97; Potter and Wetherell 1994).

Analysis of Age in Interaction

Accordingly, consider first a study of the construction of age identities in interaction. In

this project, I wanted to look at how people talk about, make sense of and manage their

membership in a particular age category (Nikander 2000, 2002). To do this, I analyzed

interview accounts: the answers, anecdotes and stories by men and women who by their

chronological age had, or were about to turn fifty. My motivation for investigating this

topic was the fact that social scientific studies still largely seemed to treat age as an

unproblematic, independent and uninteresting background variable, as a simple

quantifiable individual denominator. Unlike discursive research on other social

categories such as gender (e.g. Stokoe 1998; Wetherall 2002; Wilkinson and Kitzinger

1995), or race and national background for example (Rapley 1998; Wetherell and Potter

1992) research on age and ageing seemed relatively slow to adopt language-centred,

discursive or interactional approaches. The study was thus geared to elucidate the

advantages and analytic mileage resulting from more systematic cross-fertilisation of

discursive analysis and life course research.

Formulating explicit research questions

Formulating clear-cut, creative and precise research questions provides a basic frame for

any successful research project (Phillips and Hardy 2002: 60). Setting out to look at

how baby-boomers ‘do age’ in interaction, my research questions were first formulated

broadly and clumsily into how do people position themselves and others in lifetime

terms? How are age identities ascribed and rejected, displayed and refused in

interaction? These questions already convey the basic constructionist starting point that

categories of age, like any cultural categories by which we understand and organise the

world around us, are ‘for talking’ and sense-making (Edwards 1991, 1998). After going

through literature from the identities-in-interaction tradition (e.g. Antaki & Widdicombe

1998; Shotter & Gergen 1989; Widdicombe & Wooffitt 1995) and empirical and

theoretical work on age in interaction (e.g. Coupland & Nussbaum 1993; Gubrium,

Holstein & Buckholdt 1994) I formulated more explicit questions that also defined and

guided the analytic take and the theoretical and methodological contributions I wished to

make to the existing literature. Important revelations as to the nature of the object of my

study, and the analytic niche available came from various sources. Consider the

following example on age-in-interaction.

A: How old are you Mr. Bergstein?B: I’m 48, I look much younger. I look about 35, and I’m quite ambitious and quite idealistic and very inventive and conscientious and responsible.

Sacks (1992, Vol. 1: 44).

In this example from his lectures, Harvey Sacks points out how the speaker’s list of

added modifiers to the discloser of his chronological age: ’I’m 48’ does discursive work

to pre-empt possible negative attributes applied to someone in that age category (that

someone who is 48 is past their prime, over the hill etc.). With the help of empirical

research literature and examples like the one above, I started to acknowledge and

incorporate the positioned and factual characteristics of stage of life categories into my

research questions. Reading my data, I also began to understand that they could be

approached as a showcase of moral and factual discourse in interaction (see Bergman

1998, Jayyusi 1984, Nikander 2000). In the end, the study was framed as one making

empirically grounded observations (Nikander 2002: 15)

(i) On how people orient to, and display the factual nature of the human lifecourse as a progression, and how overlap between age categories is managed

(ii) On the discursive practices through which membership in an age category iseither warranted or resisted

(iii) On the discursive formulations of personal change and continuity, and

(iv) On the patterns of moral discourse in age-in-interaction

Working with interviews in DA

The data in the baby-boom study consisted of interviews. The field of discourse research

is however, of two minds when it comes to using such materials as data. In the natural

vs. contrived debate the relative advantages of using ‘naturally occurring’ or

‘naturalistic’ data as opposed to ‘researcher-provoked’ or ‘artificial’ data have been

explicitly contrasted with each other. In a recent thorough overview of the debate, Speer

(forth.) recommends caution in applying the natural/contrived distinction too rigidly and

suggests that strict and hard lines not be drawn in haste. Justification towards this line of

argument can in fact be found from the appreciation that much of the influential work in

discourse analysis originate from studies using interviews. Dorothy Smith’s (1987) and

later Wooffitt’s (1992) groundbreaking work on fact construction and factual discourse,

analysis of construction of authenticity (Widdicombe and Wooffitt 1995), work on the

construction of professional and gender identity (Marshall & Wetherell 1989) on gender

discrimination (Gill 1995) as well as analysis of interpretative repertoires in talk about

race (e.g. Wetherell & Potter 1992) are all ample examples of the analytic force and

richness of findings that originate from interview data.

The discursive field is unanimous however on the point that in contrast to realist or

factist social science perspectives (ten Have 2004: 73) interview data within discourse

analysis is viewed ‘as interaction in their own right’ (e.g. Potter and Wetherell 1987;

Wetherell and Potter 1992). This entails understanding questions not as a medium into

the inner world or opinions of respondents, but rather, as a central part of the data. DA

also addresses and analyses participants’ orientations to the relevance of their talk as

interview talk (e.g. Baker 1997). In recent texts the constructed nature of interviews as

interaction is also embraced as a specific social context; as constituting a specific

category of institutional talk that can be studied in itself. As a result, the research

interview as a discursive act opens up to a rich variety of analytic and theoretical

perspectives (e.g. van den Berg, Wetherell & Houtkoop-Steenstra 2003). It seems then

that interview data continues to yield analyses that alongside work on other types of

similarly important data enrich the discourse analytic tradition.

Creating data collections from materials

Data collection in discursive research is always followed by a time consuming period

during which the researcher immerses in the materials by thorough reading and re-

reading. When audio or videotaped interaction is in question, it is recommended that this

is done side by side with the original recorded material. Next, the body of texts or the

transcribed talk is coded according to the researcher’s interests and initial analytic

questions are often further specified and refined at this stage. Developing and finessing a

coding system and coming up with suitable organizing principles for the material is

where DA practice turns into a craft skill. Precise procedural guidelines are impossible

to come by in any conventional sense and the sorting of materials is always more of less

specific to the data and research questions. Familiarity with choices made in earlier

empirical research, method textbooks as well as software packages can be of assistance

at this stage (see e.g. Taylor 2001, Phillips & Hardy 2002, Wood & Kroger 2000).

Coding in DA is more that simply a mechanical procedure that precedes analysis proper.

It is guided by constructionist sensitivities and assumptions about language, interaction

and society, and by theoretical underpinnings and research questions. Reading of the

data may in part also take place in joint data sessions with colleagues. This affords

multiple opinions and observations to emerge and functions as a sounding board for

preliminary coding, analysis and interpretations. Reading the data may include asking

specific questions such as the following. What do speakers produce as relevant in this

account? How do participants interpret what is being said, what is their uptake? Why

this particular category/detail/silence here? Is the speaker doing some extra discursive

work or accounting? Why do I feel that some topic is avoided or only alluded to? What

are participants orienting to in their talk? Posing such questions to the material, as well

as reading for variation, detail and pattern all work as gateways into analysis and the

actual writing-up (see also Potter & Wetherell 1994; Wood & Kroger 2000).

The reading of materials often takes place in phases. The researcher first reads or

observes variation in the text, or notices particularly striking moments in the interaction.

Very soon one might start reading and searching for recurrent patterns and gathering

these into collections that then become a corpus of data. Collections are pieces of text

and talk with several discrete components in common that warrant their examination

together. According to Wood and Kroger (2000: 117), discourse patterns may be

synchronic (e.g. used by a particular participant) or diachronic (recurrent in the turn-

taking of participants). They may be found across participants, within or across sections

and occasions and so on. In the case of the fifty-something interviews, this work stage

involved first, reading the 800 pages of transcribed interview talk in detail and

identifying and developing a coding system for the variety of points where age, in

various ways, became topical in the interaction. Further immersion yielded several

recurrent discursive patterns that the analysis subsequently focused upon. For instance I

identified one particular recurrent discursive structure by which speakers seemed to both

acknowledge physical, psychological, and other change as a common norm and fact of

life and ageing, while at the same time placing themselves at least temporarily, outside

such change. The following extracts, transcribed in both English and Finnish, provide

examples from this collection.

Extract 1. PN: M4: Mikael (Cas 1, A: 3.2-3.9)

1. M: Well I’d (.) this is still quite No mää (.) täähän on vielä ihan2. a good age when you’re healthy hyvä ikä kun on terve3. PN: mm mm4. M: There’s like nothing yet Eihän tässä vielä mitään oo5. (.) otherwise to worry about (.) muute hätää oo6. PN: ye-es joo-o7. M: mm (0.2) you of course (.) little mm (0.2) sitä tietysti (.) pikkuhiljaahan sitä8. by little start to calm down and rupee ihminen vähän rauhottumaan ja

9. (0.4) with the years (0.4) ku ikää tulee10. but like I wouldn’t otherwise see mutta tuota en mä muuten näkis tässä11. it as any sort of a problem minkäänlaisena probleemana12. this age of mine yet= tätä ikääni vielä=13. PN: yes joo14. M: =as long as you have your health =niin kauan kuin että terveyttä on

Extract 2. PN: W12: Anna (Cas 1, A: 3.6-4.6)

1. > it hasn’t been a< reason >se ei oo myöskään ollu2. for crisis for me personally (.) mikään< kriisin aihe mulle itselle (.)3. for the time-being don’t know if it toistaseks vielä en tiedä4. turns into one some day but like vaikka tulee sit joskus mut että5. PN: mm mm6. L: growing old and age vanheneminen ja ikä7. so like (0.2) at least at this et tota (0.2) ainakaan tällä8. moment (.) I don’t feel that way hetkellä (.) en koe sitä

Extract 3. PN: W1: Laura 1 (Cas 1, A: 10.3-10.4)

1. L: So there’s like nothing yet (.) Ettei oo niinkun mitään (.)2. that would’ve clearly marked tämmöistä jossa ois selkeesti3. (.) that now your age comes in tullu vielä että (.) et nyt se ikä4. the way haittais5. PN: yeah joo6. L: I mean it will surely sta(h)rt Et kyllä niitä varmaan sit7. little by little when you start to pikkuhiljaa rupeen tulema(h)an8. ache here and there kun rupee kolottaan sieltä ja täältä9. But not like (2.0) I can’t Mut ei niinkun (2.0) en ainakaan10. say that yet at least vielä osaa sanoa

What struck me in these extracts and others like them, was how notions of continuity (in

the present day) and impending change and decrement (possibly in the future) are

constructed using a three-component structure (marked by arrows). Note how in the first

part of this format, personal change with age is denied, often by using an extreme case

formulation (Pomerantz 1986) of the type: ‘nothing has changed yet.’ This statement is

followed by an account that works to soften the extremity of the previous claim, by

acknowledging the impending possibility of change, or by acknowledging that some

change may have happened. The second part also typically includes reference to

common sense with acknowledgement tokens such as ‘of course’, or ‘surely’. The third

part is then produced contrastively with a but and a temporal marker (yet, at least at this

moment). This re-establishes the speaker’s no-change status in the present. This

recurrent pattern in my data seemed, in other words, to function as an excellent practical

tool for the discursive management of the factual commonsense existence of change in

the life course.

Making cross-reference to other studies and findings

One additional subject that I wish to address in relation to this research is the use of

existing discourse studies as a comparison point for one’s own material and analysis.

This is where reading and being familiar with the literature and other pieces of analysis

not only helps to build the analytic acuity needed, but also to make relevant and

sustainable interpretations in ways that add to existing body of analyses. Returning to

the baby-boom interview material, this meant that the identification of specific patterns

like the one described above, led me to look for instances as to how it might apply

across different contexts. What I found was that the discursive pattern identified carried

considerable family resemblance to what Charles Antaki and Margaret Wetherell (1999)

call ‘show concessions’ as well as to other data, where speakers are talking about

change. The following extract comes from Sue Widdicombe and Robin Wooffitt’s

(1995, 168) study on youth subcultures. Here is an exchange between the interviewer

and a participant that identifies himself as a punk rocker.

A comparative extract from Widdicombe and Wooffitt (1995, 168)

1. I: is being a punk very ((smiley voice))

2. important for you?3. R: yeah very indeed4. I couldn’t imagine myself being5. straight at all6. (.) like dressing neatly in tidy7. nice clothes an’ having my hair8. down and all that .hh9. na I can’t imagine=probably10. in a couple of years times11. I’ll be like that but I-I-12. at the moment I can’t imagine it at all

Note how a discursive formulation somewhat similar to those found in my data

functions here. This time the linguistic pattern is used to describe one’s personal style of

dressing as open to possible change in the future, but as something that nonetheless

remains continuous and unchanged in the present day. The point I wish to make here is

that using earlier research and analytic observations as a reference and comparison point

can render research more generalizable. More importantly, it gives credit to earlier

findings, supports the analytic choices made and helps form new, more solid bases on

which future empirical observations can be built.

Perspectives on institutional decision-making

Resonating with concerns for the institutional contexts of interaction, the same data set

often affords multiple analytic angles and points of interrogation. I use an empirical

study of institutional decision-making as a case in point. The data derive from a project

where extensive naturally occurring video data were collected in the same institution

during a period of one year (see Nikander 2003, 2007). The data consist of 42 hours of

team meetings between professionals within the social and heath sector, including

doctors, nurses, home-help personnel, social workers and a secretary. The practical task

for the team meetings is to make concrete decisions either on financial support to elderly

clients still living at home, or on long-term nursing home placements. The data thus

represents one focal interactional site where the practical work of people processing in

human service organisations gets done, largely through talk. The study can also be

located within the construction of social problems tradition (e.g. Holstein and Miller

1993) in that the data concerns the social processes of situational definition and claims

making by institutional actors in interaction.

The normal flow of interaction in the team meetings consists of a chain of client

case descriptions. Case presentations that are normally produced in monologue are

followed by collegial discussion that varies in length, and usually by a turn that

marks that a decision about a client case has been reached. After this, the next

client case is introduced. The aim is to go through a number of client cases and to

provide criteria and arguments either for or against placing a particular client into a

category of care recipiency.

Below we have an example in both English and Finnish of a case description that

is presented in a comparatively short, consensual and uncomplicated fashion.

Extract 4: M10: C12 21:21Speakers: HHH = head of home help, HN = head nurse (district), S = secretaryPseudonyms: Sunnybrook (Mikonmaa) = hospital, Greyfield (Harmaaharju) =nursing home

1. HHH: yes .hhh well then there’s joo .hhh no sitten on2. ((last name + first name)) (0.8) ((sukunimi + etunimi)) (0.8).

3. and she’s er (1.2) now, (0.5) ja hän on tuota (1.2) nytten (0.5)4. in Sunnybrook hospital and Mikonmaan sairaalassa ja5. has: gone there on the fifteenth of on: sinne viidestoista6. Mayhh (0.8) due to decline in viidettähhh (0.8) mennyt7. general condition (0.5) yleiskunnon laskun (0.5)8. forgetfulness and disorientation muistamattomuuden ja sekavuuden vuoksi9. (0.6) after falling at home (0.6) kaaduttuaan kotona10. up till now she’s been living hän on tähän asti asunut11. alone secured by relatives yksin siellä omaistenhhh ja12. and three daily visits from kolme kertaa päivässä käyvän13. home help (0.5) there’s a kotiavun turvin (0.6) tänne on14. (2.8) assistant senior doctor N (2.8) apulaisylilääkäri N15. has been consultated tehny konsultaation16. on the twelfth of June and (.) kahdestoista kuudetta ja (.)17. hhh noted that ((the patient)) hhh todennut ettei ((potilas))18. doesn’t need hospital care tarvitse sairaalahoitoa19. but that all means of non- mutta (.) avohuollon mahdollisuudet20. institutional care have run up and on käytetty loppuun ja21. given this (0.5) he suggests this näin ollen (0.5) ehdottaa tätä22. placement (.) in Greyfield (.) Harmaaharjun (.) paikkaa (.)23. and home help? (.) ºagrees? ja kotihoito? on (.) ºsamaa? mieltä24. (1.2) so I guess we’ll acceptº mieltä (1.2) että hyväksyttäneenº25. HN: [accepted [hyväksytty26. S: [mm [mm27. HHH: ºgood? º (4.0) <then> next we have ºhyvä?º (4.0) <sitte> meillä on seuraavana

As pointed out already, any DA audio or video data set affords multiple analytic angles.

One obvious choice for a unit of analysis here was the detail in which case descriptions

were constructed. Analysis of the discursive detail through which individual clients are

talked into being in case talk includes analysis of what gets produced as relevant for

decision-making (Edwards 1998) and how specific categorisations in themselves already

project and index specific outcomes and decisions. In extract 4, the routine mention of

the absent client’s name is this time followed by mention of her current whereabouts,

medical condition and network of care.

In some cases however, specific categories may be produced early on. Consider the

material in Extract 5 for a contrasting case.

Extract 5. M4. Nursing home placements (12.32-)Speaker: HSW = Hospital social worker, Fairfield (Teukka) = a hospital

1. HSW: Okay the first one is Okei ensimmäisenä2. ((last name + first name)) ((sukunimi + etunimi))3. (0.8) on page what three (0.8) sivulla mikä kolme4. (3.8) ((page leafing)) (3.8) ((monisteiden selailua))5. HSW: A: (0.8) er never married female Tämmöne:n (0.8) eh neiti-ihminen6. who has come to us in joka on meille tullu7. Fairfield (1.2) in July a:nd Teukkaan (1.2) heinäkuussa ja:

This is a compact example of how specific detail, the marital status and the gender of the

client, in an economical way already indicate that this woman does not have a spouse or

children to fall back on. Despite its demographic, ‘just ticking a box’ –type character, the

categorisation therefore already moves the client into a specific cluster of action-worthy

cases and indicates that an institutional intervention may be needed.

Looking at how client cases are discursively constructed is thus one crucial analytic angle

to these as well as other data and studies consisting of professional –client encounters.

Other possibilities include reading the data in terms of the social functions of

psychological or emotion discourse in decision-making (Nikander 2007), mapping the

practices whereby professionals move between written documents or computer files and

their own first-hand eye-witness knowledge on the clients, identifying how professional

boundaries and power structures are alluded to, constructed and demarcated through

discourse, or how moral responsibilities of the community, the professionals and the

family of the elderly clients are negotiated (Nikander 2005) and so on. The data may also

yield methodological points of view like analysing the data in terms of participants’

orientations to the camera. In DA studies common claims about data contamination can

easily be turned around into an analysable topic.

The richness of data and the potential for multiple analytic view points is a further benefit

of working with audio and video. Faced with such ample range of choice, the researcher

zooms in on particular interactional phenomena with a specific analytic and theoretical

contribution to the wider field of DA studies in mind. The richness of data is also a

practical issue that concerns writing-up results in separate articles, chapters or in more

practice-oriented pieces that help take the analytic observations of a discourse analyst

back to the institutional field where they originated from.

Transcripts, validity and reliability

Finally, let me address some key points of producing good quality discourse analysis.

Good quality in all social scientific work builds on generally agreed upon norms such as

ethically sound starting points and principles (e.g. Taylor 2001). Here the focus however,

is more specifically on the validity and reliability in research working with texts and with

good practice in our analysis. We can start with a list of questions that is by no means

exhaustive.

What are the specific strengths of working with transcripts?

Does translating transcripts affect validity?

What are the special characteristics of the data that are collected through audio or

videotaping?

What kinds of social and interactional processes are missed?

Are transcripts enough, or should data also be gathered by other means?

Specific strengths in working with transcripts

The most common rationale for working with transcripts is that recordings and transcripts

based on them provide a highly detailed and accessible representation of social action

(Peräkylä 1997: 203). In DA, the detail of empirical material is presented in a form that

allows readers and fellow researchers to ‘to make their own checks and judgements’

(Potter and Edwards 2001: 108). Transcripts bring immediacy and transparency to the

phenomena under study, and the audience is given almost equal access to inspect the data

on which the analysis is based, alongside with the researcher. In addition to immediacy,

the analysis of transcripts, particularly conversation analysis, is ‘rigorous in its

requirement of an empirical grounding for any description to be accepted as valid'

(Peräkylä 1997: 202). In discourse analysis the requirement to anchor analytic

observations firmly in the data is also imperative. Compared to conversation analysis,

more latitude is sometimes allowed however, and the final evaluation of the

persuasiveness of an analytic claim is left for the reader (see Seale 1999). So in addition

to analytic grounding, discourse analysis has emphasized the rhetorical persuasiveness, or

the convincing qualities of the research report, as well as the reader's active judgement on

its validity.

The reasons and justifications for working with transcripts are typically presented in

contrast and comparison to ethnography, particularly in contrast to the use of field notes.

According to Anssi Peräkylä, working with transcripts 'eliminates at one stroke many of

the problems that ethnographers have with unspecified accuracy of field notes and with

the limited public access to them' (Peräkylä 1997:203, see also discussions in Maynard

1989, 2003 and in West 1996). He is not alone in saying this. The problem with the

reliability of field notes is that they are observations turned into texts: they are

reconstructions from an observer's notes, and as such based on the memory of their

writer. The reader has no direct access to the actual goings-on but must take on trust that

the descriptions and observations do justice to the 'reality' and to the initial interactions

that the descriptions are about. One can therefore suspect, as Paul Atkinson has done

(1992), that field notes are based on rhetorical construction and active selection by the

author. Working with transcripts efficiently solves such problems and builds a solid

ground for analysis.

Peräkylä also points to (1997: 203) Jerome Kirk and Marc Miller’s definition of

reliability as ‘as the degree to which the finding is independent of accidental

circumstances of the research’ (1986: 20). Securing superior reliability and transparency

when working with transcripts, according to Peräkylä, requires adequate and high

technical quality of the recordings they are based on and that proper attention be paid to

data selection (1997: 205-207). A further source of quality in DA research results from

collective analysis in data session. These can be taken as an exercise in inter-rater

reliability. That is, results are rarely based on an individual researcher’s reading but

rather, collectively produced interpretative testing feeds into and informs the analyses

prior to publication.

Translated transcripts

The discourse methods literature has produced several excellent overviews on the best

practices in producing transcripts, discussions on the rationale of not producing tidied-up

versions of them and on the rationale of using specific transcription notations (e.g.

Silverman 1993, Taylor 2001, West 1996). One largely overlooked question in the

literature concerns the fact that a large proportion of DA work is done on languages other

than English. Discussion on the additional complications that follow from having to

produce and translate transcripts of data originally in another language for an English

speaking and reading audience remains a rarity in the DA literature (e.g. ten Have 1999,

Nikander 2002, forthcoming). A few points deserve mention here. First, it seems that

presenting the original data alongside the translation into the language of the publication

(often English) is a norm that fits the principle of validity and reliability through

transparency outlined above. Second, translating data extracts is not merely a question of

‘adopting’ a ‘transcription technique’ but rather includes a range of practical and

ideological questions as to the level of detail in the transcription, and of the way in which

the translations are physically presented in print. Third, in case we understand transcripts

as central to guaranteeing the publicly verifiable nature of DA research, generally agreed

upon rules concerning the layout and publication practices concerning these data should

be in place. One example of a possible layout has been used in this chapter.

Special characteristics of data collected through audio or videotaping: Is something

missed?

All types of research methods inevitably include delimiting the data in some ways. All

data are produced. They are limited presentations of the social world and in themselves

already a product of specific choices made by the researcher (e.g. Hester and Francis

1994). Despite the acclaimed accuracy and public access of audio and video materials,

some critics argue that the use of such technologies, particularly when studying various

work or institutional settings, is in danger of shaping our research questions, the

occupations studied and therefore potentially also in danger of producing distorted

representations of work practices (Hak 1999). Tony Hak’s criticism is directed

specifically against conversation analysis in institutional settings, but can, in part, be

extended to discursive research as well.

According to Hak, the use of audio or video recordings sets certain limits to what can be

studied and what kinds of questions are asked. For instance, considerable amount of

research has been done on relatively stationary situations such as consultations, meetings

or ward rounds, whereas the multitude of goings-on in corridors, by the bedside, ad hoc

informal discussions between the staff and between the staff and clients are lost to what

Hak calls the 'discursive gaze'. Another limitation with working with recordings is that

the discursive gaze means that only work situations that get done through a lot of talk are

focused upon. Hak claims this also means that research easily concentrates on data

recorded amongst professions with a higher status, while menial work, unremarkable

aspects of work practices, and certain tasks such as bathing, cleaning, and cooking meals

are overlooked (1999: 440). This has some political implications: being a focus of

research often brings positive effects for the category of workers studied. According to

Hak it is therefore regrettable that studies of discourse in work settings often focus on

professions with higher status.

These are only a few important points made by Hak, but they raise serious concerns

worth considering. Simultaneously however, Hak’s criticism clearly misrepresents and

does injustice to discursive (and conversation analytic) research and fails to appreciate

the rapidly broadening range of empirical analyses. The collection of video-recorded

material in institutions inevitably includes field-time similar to ethnography, the non-

verbal side of interaction is often an integral part of DA and related technological

developments already enable a variety of mobile data collection in different interactional

settings. Hak’s criticism is also built on simple juxtaposition between research based on

the use of recordings and transcripts and the ethnographic tradition, which in itself is a

rather arbitrary distinction.

Other forms of data

Still, the question remains, are transcripts enough or should data also be gather by other

means? In practice discourse analytic research rarely limits itself purely to video or audio

taped data. In fact, the research literature offers a number of helpful suggestions of

combining ethnography and interviews with discursive analysis, of using textual

materials, and of following longer term interactional processes. According to Douglas

Maynard for instance (1989, 2003: 64-87), analysis of discourse episodes may de-

emphasize the institutional context wherein those episodes occur. Similarly however,

granting uncontrolled primacy to ad hoc ethnographic knowledge on the wider social

environment and the setting surrounding the interaction may result in data loss (2003,

71). According to Maynard: ‘ethnographic insistence on the relevance of larger and wider

institutional structures can mean a loss of data in and as the interaction, for attention

shifts from actual utterances in the fullness of their detail and as embedded within a local

interactional context to embrace narrative or other general accounts concerning social

surrounding’ (2003: 72). He proposes limited affinity between ethnography and

discourse/CA research and points to three precise ways in which ethnography can

complement close analysis of video and audio data: in descriptions of settings and

identities of parties; in explications of key terms, phrases and course of action that the

researcher is unfamiliar with; and in explaining “curious” patterns that prior analysis may

reveal (2003: 73).

In the end, putting up strict restrictions as to what types of data DA research should be

restricted to is futile and discourse researchers continue to vary in the degree and style in

which social structure is incorporated and what is granted primacy, set at the foreground

or background in their analyses. David Silverman (1999) has argued for collaboration

between different traditions and against establishing sectarian armed camps, based on

animosity. It is through surprising and ongoing exchange and dialogue between research

traditions that new outlooks emerge. Using transcripts, collecting observational data,

using documents, and conducting interviews do not rule each other out and in practice

DA researchers are encouraged to combine a wide range of different materials.

Conclusion

Translating a skill into a technique (Hepburn 1997: 33) is always a difficult task. Simple

linear recipe-book models of discursive analysis can never do justice to the complexity of

DA and its different versions, traditions and debates. Instead of attempting to pin down

discourse analysis as a ‘constructionist method’, the goal in this chapter has been to give

a taste of the rationale for doing discursive research and on providing general guidelines

and empirical examples of what the analyses in this tradition have to offer. Critical

voices, tensions and ongoing debates are always a sign of lively and fruitful academic

enterprise. Therefore such voices were also included, not silenced.

The future development of the field of discourse analysis depends, however, on how

members new to the field adopt existing versions and traditions, how they add to,

transform and further extend the body of analytic findings and agendas, and on how they

find new insightful means of analyzing empirical material. The construction of new

forms of discourse analysis will continue as theoretical boundaries shift and new and

exciting approaches emerge.

References:

Antaki, C. & Wetherell, M. (1999): Show concessions. Discourse Studies, 1(1): 7-27.

Antaki, C. & Widdicombe, S. (Eds.) (1998). Identities in talk. London: Sage.

Atkinson, P. (1992) Understanding ethnographic texts. Newbury Park: Sage.

Atkinson, J.M. and Heritage, J. (Eds.) (1984). Structures of Social Action: Studies in

Conversation Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Austin J.L. (1962). How to do things with words. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Baker, C.D. (1997). Membership categorization and interview accounts. In Silverman, D.

(Ed.): Qualitative research: Theory, method and practice (pp. 130-143). London: Sage.

Bergmann, J.R. (1998). Introduction: Morality in discourse. Research on Language and

Social Interaction, 31 (3 & 4): 279-294.

Billig, M. (1985). Prejudice, categorization and particularization: From a perceptual to a

rhetorical approach. European Journal of Social Psychology, 15: 79-103.

Billig, M. (1988). Methodology and scholarship in understanding ideological

explanantion. In C. Antaki (Ed.) Analyzing everyday explanation: A case book of methods

(pp. 199-215). London: Sage.

Billig, M. (1996). Arguing and thinking: A rhetorical approach to social psychology

(Second edition). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Burman E. & Parker I. (1993) (Eds.). Discourse analytic research: Repertoires and

readings in action. Routledge: London.

Burr, V. (1995). An introduction to social constructionism. London: Routledge.

Coupland, N. & Nussbaum, J.F. (Eds.) (1993). Discourse and lifespan identity. Newbury

Park: Sage.

Drew, P. (1992). Contested evidence in courtroom cross-examination: the case of a trial

for rape. In P. Drew and J. Heritage (Eds.) Talk at work: Interaction in institutional

settings (pp. 470-520). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Drew, P. & Heritage J. (1992) (Eds.). Talk at work: Interaction in institutional settings

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Edwards, D. (1991). Categories are for talking: On the cognitive and discursive bases of

categorization. Theory & Psychology, 1(4): 515-542.

Edwards, D. (1997). Discourse and cognition. London: Sage.

Edwards, D. (1998). The relevant thing about her: Social identity categories in use.

In C. Antaki and S. Widdicombe (Eds.): Identities in talk (pp. 15-33). London: Sage.

Fairclough, N. (1995). Critical discourse analysis. The critical study of language.

London: Longman.

Fairclough, N. & Wodak, R. (1997). Critical discourse analysis. In T.A. van Dijk (Ed.)

Discourse as social interaction: Vol 1 (pp.258-284). London: Sage.

Gill, R. (1993). Justifying injustice: Broadcasters’ accounts of inequality in radio. In E.

Burman and I. Parker (Eds.) Discourse analytic research: Repertoires and readings of

texts in action (pp. 75-93). London: Routledge.

Gill, R. (1996). Discourse analysis. Practical implementation. In J.T.E. Richardson (Ed.)

Handbook of qualitative research methods (pp. 141-156). Leicester, UK: British

Psychological Society.

Gubrium, J.F., Holstein, J.A. & Buckholdt, D.R. (1994). Constructing the life course.

New York: General Hall Inc.

Hak, T. (1999). "Text" and "con-text": Talk bias in studies of health care work. In S.

Sarangi and C. Roberts (Eds.): Talk, work and institutional order. Discourse in medical,

mediation and management settings (pp. 427- 451). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Harré, R. (1986) (Ed.). The social construction of emotions. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

Hepburn, A. (1997). Teachers and secondary school bullying: A postmodern discourse

analysis. Discourse & Society, 8, 27-48.

Hester, S. & Francis, D. (1994). Doing data: The local organization of a sociological

interview. British Journal of Sociology, 45(4): 675-695.

Holstein, J. A. & Miller G. (1993) (Eds.). Reconsidering Social Constructionism:

Debates in Social Problems Theory. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.

Jayyusi, L. (1984): Categorisation and the Moral Order. London: Routledge and Kegan

Paul.

Marshall, H. & Wetherell, M. (1989). Talking about career and gender identities: A

discourse analysis perspective. In S. Skevington and D. Baker (Eds.): The social identity

of women (pp. 106-129). Sage: London.

Maynard, D.W. (1989). On the ethnography and analysis of discourse in institutional

settings. In J.A. Holstein and G. Miller (Eds.): Perspectives on social problems: A

research annual (pp, 127-146). Greenwich, Conneticut: JAI Press.

Maynard, D.W. (2003). Bad News, Good News. Conversational order in everyday talk

and clinical settings. Chicago & London, Chicago University Press.

Nikander P. (1995). The turn to the text: The critical potential of discursive social

psychology. Nordiske Udkast: Journal for Critical Social Science 2, 3-15

Nikander, P. (2000). ‘Old’ vs. ‘little girl’: A discursive approach to age categorisation and

morality. Journal of Aging Studies, 14(4): 335-358.

Nikander, P. (2002). Age in action: Membership work and stage of life categories in talk.

Helsinki, Finnish Academy of Science and Letters.

Nikander, P. (2003). The absent client: Case description and decision-making in

interprofessional meetings. In Hall C, Juhila K, Parton N and Pösö T. (Eds.):

Constructing clienthood in social work and human services: Identities, interactions and

practices (pp. 112-128). London: Jessica Kingsley.

Nikander, P. (2005). Managing scarcity: Joint decision making in interprofessional

meetings (pp. 260-279). In T. Heinonen & A. Metteri (Eds.): Social Work in Health and

Mental Health: Issues, Developments and Actions. Toronto: Canadian Scholar’s Press.

Nikander, P. (forth. 2007). Emotions in meeting talk. In A. Hepburn & S. Wiggins (Eds.):

Discursive research in practice. New approaches to psychology and interaction.

Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.

Nikander, P. (forth.). Working with Transcriptions and Translated Data. Qualitative

Research in Psychology.

Parker, I. (1998) (Eds.): Social constructionism, discourse and realism. London: Sage.

Peräkylä, A. (1997). Reliability and validity in research based on tapes and transcripts. In

D. Silverman (Ed.): Qualitative research: Theory, method and practice (pp. 201-220).

London: Sage.

Phillips, N. & Hardy, C. (2002). Discourse analysis. Investigating processes of social

construction. Qualitative research methods series 50. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Pomerantz, A. (1986). Extreme case formulations: A way of legitimizing claims. Human

Studies, 9: 219-229.

Potter, J. (1996). Discourse analysis and constructionist approaches: theoretical

background. In J.T.E. Richardson (Ed.) Handbook of qualitative research methods (pp.

125-140). Leicester, UK: British Psychological Society.

Potter, J. (1997). Discourse analysis as a way of analysing naturally occurring talk. In D.

Silverman (Ed.): Qualitative research. Theory, method and practice (pp. 144-160).

London: Sage.

Potter, J. & Edwards, D. (2001). Discursive social psychology. In W.P. Robinson and H.

Giles (Eds.) The new handbook of language and social psychology (pp. 103-118).

Chichester, UK: Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Potter, J. & Wetherell, M. (1987). Discourse and social psychology: Beyond attitudes and

behaviour. London: Sage.

Potter, J. & Wetherell M. (1994). Analyzing discourse. In A Bryman and R.G. Burgess

(Eds.) Analysing qualitative data (pp. 41-66). London: Routledge.

Rapley, M. (1998): ‘Just an ordinary Australian’: Self-categorisation and the discursive

construction of facticity in ‘new racist’ political rhetoric. British Journal of Social

Psychology, 37: 325-344.

Sacks, H. (1974): On the analyzability of stories by children. In R. Turner (Ed.):

Ethnomethodology: Selected readings (pp. 216-232). Harmondsworth: Penguin.

Sacks, H. (1992). Lectures on conversation, Vols. 1 & 2. Oxford: Blackwell.

Schenkein, J (1978). Sketch of the analytic mentality for the study of conversational

interaction. In J. Schenkein (Ed.) Studies in the organization of conversational

interaction (pp. . New York: Academic Press.

Scollon, R. & Scollon S.W. (2004). Discourses in place. Language in the material world.

London and New York: Routledge.

Seale C. (1999). The Quality of qualitative research. London: Sage.

Shotter, J. & Gergen, K.J. (Eds.) (1989). Texts of identity. London: Sage.

Silverman, D. (1993). Interpreting Qualitative Data: Methods for Analysing Talk, Text

and Interaction. London: Sage.

Silverman, D. (1998). Harvey Sacks. Social science and conversation analysis.

Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.

Silverman, D. (1999). Warriors or collaborators: Reworking methodological

controversies in the study of institutional interaction. In S. Sarangi & C. Roberts (Eds.):

Talk, work and institutional order. Discourse in medical, mediation and management

settings (pp. 401-425). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Smith, D. (1978). K is mentally ill: The anatomy of a factual account. Sociology, 12: 23-

53.

Speer, Sue (forth.). Natural and contrived data. In L. Bickman, J. Brannen & P.

Alasuutari (Eds.) Handbook of social research. London: Sage.

Stokoe, E.H. (1998). Talking about gender: The conversational construction of gender

categories in academic discourse. Discourse & Society, 9(2): 217-240.

Taylor, S. (2001). Locating and conducting discourse analytic research. In M. Wetherell,

S. Taylor and S.J. Yates (Eds.) Discourse as data. A guide for analysis (pp. 5-48). Sage (in

association with Open University): London.

ten Have, P. (1999). Doing conversation analysis: A practical guide. London: Sage.

ten Have, P. (2004). Understanding qualitative research and ethnomethodology. London:

Sage.

van den Berg, H. Wetherell, M. & Houtkoop-Steenstra, H. (2003) (Eds.). Analyzing race

talk. Multidisciplinary approaches to the interview. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge

University Press.

Wetherall, A. (2002). Gender, language and discourse. New York: Routledge.

Wetherell, M. (2001a). Editor’s introduction. In M. Wetherell, S. Taylor & S. J. Yates

(Eds.): Discourse theory and practice. A reader (pp. 9-14). London: Sage.

Wetherell, M. (2001b). Debates in discourse research. In M. Wetherell, S. Taylor & S. J.

Yates (Eds.): Discourse theory and practice. A reader (pp. 380-399). London: Sage.

Wetherell M. & Potter, J. (1992). Mapping the language of racism: Discourse and the

legitimation of exploitation. London: Sage.

West, C. (1996). Ethnography and Ortography. A (modest) methodological proposal.

Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 25: 3, 327-352.

Widdicombe, S. (1993). Autobiography and change: Rhetoric and authenticity of

‘Gothic’ style. In E. Burman & I. Parker (Eds.). Discourse analytic research: Repertoires

and readings in action (pp. 94-113). Routledge: London.

Widdicombe, S. & Wooffitt, R. (1995). The language of youth subcultures: Social identity

in action. Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf.

Willig C. (1999) (Eds.). Applied discourse analysis. Social and psychological

interventions. Buckingham & Philadelphia: Open University Press.

Wilkinson, S. & Kitzinger, C. (1995). Feminism and discourse: Psychological

perspectives. London: Sage.

Wodak, R. (2006). Review article. Dilemmas of (discourse) analysis. Language in

Society, 35, 595-611.

Wood, L. A & Kroger, R. O. (2000). Doing discourse analysis. Methods for studying

action in talk and text. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Wooffitt, R. (1992). Telling tales of the unexpected: The organization of factual

discourse. London: Harvester Wheatsheaf.

i All data extracts in the chapter follow the transcription conventions originally developed by Gail Jefferson(see e.g. Atkinson and Heritage 1984 for details).